Can X-Ray for ArcCatalog be used without Excel?

[Zeke]

Maybe this belongs in the geodatabase forum, apologize if so.

I see that ESRI now just ships the Local Government model as an xml file instead of a copy of the gdb w/sample data. Then ESRI says to use X-Ray for ArcCatalog to create the gdb. This would be fine, except X-Ray appears to require Excel. Our department got rid of MS Office as a cost saving move, and now we use Libre as a free open source alternative. X-Ray does not appear to like that, throws an error, although LibreOffice Calc can read and write xls files. My guess is that X-Ray is looking for Excel.exe. Is there a way to use something like Libre instead of calc, or does it have to have Excel itself? Thanks.

[ScottOppmann · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, no you can not use Xray without MS Excel.  You can import the XML workspace document directly in ArcCatalog and make schema changes with ArcCatalog if you do not have access to MS Excel.  You'll also have to use Batch Project to ensure the schema is aligned with your spatial reference.

[Zeke]

Ok, thanks Scott.